Have you seen 8th grade?

8th Grade was consistently sold out in NYC, and then it was gone. Luckily, while visiting my friends and their baby in San Jose, CA, we came across a theatre that not only had Moviepass e-ticketing, so the cost is about $3 (since Moviepass is $10/month and allow you to see three movies a month). We visited the almost scarily friendly Aquarius Theatre in Palo Alto, CA.

I’m a little on catching Bo Burnham’s film about what it is like to be an 8th grader, growing up amongst social media and social acceptance (or lack of it). It’s amazing because Burnham created the film based off his “research” watching “8th grade vlogs” on Youtube.

Says Bo Burnham:

The really incredible thing is that if you want to find out what [contemporary eight graders] are like, they post their entire lives online. I don’t have to go to a middle school and creep around. The internet has made research much, much easier — so easy that maybe we don’t always do the work that we should. But their entire world is there online and if you go find the kids that no one is looking at, they are being very honest and open and vulnerable. If you research eighth grade by who are the most famous eighth grade YouTubers you’re not going to find anything honest. I would just search “eighth grade vlog” and filter it by upload date, so it would be something posted 30 minutes ago by a kid who has ten subscribers.

The way it kicked off was actually watching videos of girls that age speaking and just trying to transcribe it. I did that before I even had the character of Kayla in mind. I was just trying to see if I could capture what those videos sounded like, which was this very specific rhythm. It was like Mamet, that’s a perfect comparison. So I transcribed them and then I tried to write an original one. That was when the voice first came.

His comedy is not my cup of tea (for my cup of tea, search Asiz Ansari or Gabriel Iglesias) but it’s fun to see people spread invest themselves across various mediums. Having watched directors, writers, producers, editors, etc. roll in and out of my husband’s post production film office, Final Frame, and having worked for an Oscar nominated documentarian myself, I’ve seen what goes into movie making, and it’s hard not to imagine pouring yourself 100% into one craft.

Bo Burnham inspires me to keep writing (blogging) and bouncing around other projects, while also focusing on being a Household Manager / Petsit Company Owner / Bnb Owner. And I’m glad he has discovered movie writing and directing because this doesn’t make me laugh:

But 8th Grade made me think think think, and I hope he makes more films soon.

Let me end on one final note to make you think. Did you know that Bo Burnham was once a famous high school Youtuber himself!?

Disgusting, but like I said, I’m glad he discovered making feature films, that appeal to a larger audience than the one above. #maturity+

We are Jen and Sandy, professional nomads in New York City. We live off the urban land and document our findings along the way. We pay no rent, no utilities, and live sustainably off $100/week. Read more about us here.